Policy-based network management (PBNM) systems are a promising but new discipline aimed at automating network management decisions based on experts' knowledge and strategic business objectives.
One of the issues which are hardly ever addressed in PBNM is the stability of the managed system as the result of the interaction between the dynamic network behavior with the autonomous decision making. Yet this issue is central to the design of a self-management networking system comprised of autonomous entities making decisions driven by policies with often unknown consequences. Decisions made by one entity may change the context and configuration of other autonomous entities which may in turn react changing the context and configuration of the first entity triggering a flip-flop and/or cascading change behavior.